Reflections on teaching as a second career

The noise in life

Thanksgiving in my upstate home was a crowded and noisy affair. The old farmhouse I call home is like so many others in the rural countryside: it is big. With one part added to another over the span of nearly 180 years, it can easily accommodate a holiday crowd. This year, that meant 17 people, two dogs, and two cats. While I was driving north from the Bronx on Wednesday evening they were all there, already in a holiday mood. And while an old farmhouse can accommodate my family, it took some effort, and numerous deep breathes for me to prepare myself for such a crowd when I pulled into the driveway in the darkness of late November.

Our Thanksgiving feast was wonderful. The weather was perfect, the food was delicious, and throughout the weekend we enjoyed the love we share for one another. After the last of my family departed on Saturday, my youngest son and I were left with the house to ourselves. The silence was amazing. Later that day, I sent an email to all who had been together in upstate and wrote:

Andrew and I now share a much quieter home. Though there are times at family gatherings when you might give anything for ten minutes of quiet, when the silence does come, you miss the noise!

I can say the same for the school I work in and the students I teach. They are a studious group to be sure, but there are times when it seems like there is nothing but conversation going on between them. We joked about it a couple of weeks ago and even came up with a new word. One student suggested we add to our classroom rules: No conversating!

People like to talk. I get that, and I can be a bit of a “conversator” myself. Teenagers can be especially talkative, especially when they haven’t seen each other for several days. There is a lot of catching up to do. So I loosened the reins today, the first day back from the Thanksgiving holiday, and tolerated more chatter than I might on any other day. Tomorrow, I can always pull back and say “Whoa!”

I enjoy listening to them talk. To me, it is evidence of the community we have formed. If they had nothing to say to each other, I would really have to wonder about my skills as a teacher.

One of the projects my students have worked on is a formal interview. They have to send an email to someone who works in the school requesting time to meet with them and ask them some questions. This is a job search skill they will need. Additionally, they have to prepare five questions they wish to ask. Most send their emails to, and prepare their questions for, either me or their Advocacy Counselor.

Back in late September, one of my students requested my time, and we met at my desk. One of her questions was, “Do you like your students?” We recently had four-day weekend for Rosh Hashanah. “Do you remember the four days we had off last week?” I asked her. She said she did. “Well for me,” I told her, “That was one day too many.”

I really had missed my students, even their chatter, and the music in their headphones that is sometimes too loud. I missed their easily distracted personalities, and their boisterousness in the hallways. In a few short months it has all become a comforting sound to this teacher in the Bronx. Like the quiet of my home this past Saturday afternoon, I might enjoy the silence for a bit, but eventually it is the noise in life I crave.